The Finance Ministry's top bureaucrat said today that he was stepping down, creating a vacuum in the ministry as it tries to cope with a bribery scandal and steer the nation out of an economic quagmire. Takeshi Komura, the Vice Finance Minister,...

Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka formally resigned today to take responsibility for a bribery scandal, in a move that raised the possibility of a shift in Government policy to stimulate Japan's economy and help ease the rest of Asia out of its...

Prosecutors arrested two high-ranking officials of the Japanese Finance Ministry on Monday on charges of having accepted bribes from banks they were regulating. Some opposition parties called on Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka to take...

Add hostage-taking to the problems afflicting the Japanese stock market. Shortly after noon Tuesday, an armed man took a Government official working at the Tokyo Stock Exchange hostage. He demanded a trading halt and a meeting with Finance...

January 14, 1998, Wednesday

An armed man entered the Tokyo Stock Exchange director's office about 1 p.m. and apparently took a Finance Ministry official hostage, media reports said, citing police. The armed man, described as in his mid-20s and carrying a gun and a knife,...

January 13, 1998, Tuesday

Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka announced steps today to stabilize the troubled Japanese stock market and increase investor confidence through stronger supervision and controls on speculative trading. Mr. Mitsuzuka said the measures called for...

January 7, 1998, Wednesday

The collapse of the Yamaichi Securities Company was not a particular shock in Japan, where predictions had been building for months that the nation's oldest brokerage firm, saddled by debts and mismanagement, would go out of business. The nasty...

The Yamaichi Securities Company, the fourth largest brokerage firm in Ja pan, moved to close its doors on 100 years of business today, and the Gov ernment mobilized its forces to re assure global markets that it is com mitted to an orderly overhaul...

A major Japanese bank collapsed this morning in a new reminder of the weakness in Asia's financial system, just as American and Japanese officials were discussing new ways of responding to financial emergencies in the region. The bank that...

In another sign of Washington's concern about an escalation of the financial crisis in Asia, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin wrote a private letter to his Japanese counterpart late last week warning that the health of Japan's banking system was...